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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517536">A Denial of Summer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbonated_Blood/pseuds/Carbonated_Blood'>Carbonated_Blood</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Slow Burn, Slow burn for Marileth at least, Temporary Character Death, Unhealthy Relationships, You know. Divine pulse, inevitable break up</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:41:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517536</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbonated_Blood/pseuds/Carbonated_Blood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Marianne and Hilda have always depended on each other, their outlooks on life seem to clash yet blend in an oddly harmonious fashion. Their relationship is private, intimate, yet quietly known by everyone. So what is it that could draw the two apart?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril, Marianne von Edmund/My Unit | Byleth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Rise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Let me paint you a picture!” It rings across the battlefield, cluing allies into the impending, lethal, strike. An arrow freed itself from Ignatz’s bowstring, whistling through the air, and disturbing the dance of snowflakes. A bandit, one of an uncomely fate, finds his neck to be the artist’s newly favored quiver. Within a single shot, the man is brought to his knees, dead.</p>
<p>Silent to all those bar he who beckoned it was a cacophonous shatter. It were as if the warzone had forever been held within a snowglobe, one whose thin glass shell burst all too suddenly. Snowflakes allowed their drift pause, bandits merely stared in absent fury, and Ignatz… Ignatz’s arrow was once more twixt his fingers.</p>
<p>Clad in black, with a cloak unfettered by now stagnant winds, the professor walked past frozen students, silently sifting himself towards the spectacled pupil. His arrow launched with an uncommon ferocity, a lethality that’d be hard pressed to be replicated. Yet Byleth knew fully well, from experience, that no matter how many times this attack’d be unleashed, it’d always carry that very same fury. </p>
<p>Putting his hands over Ignatz’s shoulders, the professors turns his student in a careful, calculated, manner. Such a deadly attack was better served executing an enemy more resilient after all. Pressing his own cheek to the motionless boy’s, Byleth aimed the bow with him, shifting his target from a common bandit, to a particularly more hulking individual, an armored knight. Finding peace with his tactical adjustment, the professor returned to his previous position. On his journey back, frozen droplets in the air were tenderly pushed aside, acquiescing control within the prison of progression. Finding the pose he had left behind, he allowed time to once more begin it’s tread.</p>
<p>The deafening shatter reverted, snowflakes danced, bandits contorted. Breaths of time were blowing once more, and history allowed rewriting. “Let me paint you a picture!” It rings across the battlefield, cluing Byleth into his altered intention. With this, the battle was his.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Transit back towards the monastery was riddled with conflicting feelings. The unrelenting nips of cold numbing everyones’ fingertips, starkly contrasted with the heat of bodies once busy, having just been pulled from the exhaustion of combat. </p>
<p>The deer within the carriage were properly rowdy within the fervor of a won battle. Raphael burdened Ignatz’s shoulder with a weighty hand, gassing him up over the perfect shot he landed earlier. Lysithea chided Lorenz over an avoidable wound he sustained, all the while Flayn made work on patching the noble up. Leonie smiled for herself as conversation rolled on, she was beginning to feel better since what happened to Jeralt. Claude made work of laying into Hilda, interrogating her over whether or not she’d actually <i>try</i> come the next battle. </p>
<p>“Claude, I don’t think anyone’s asking me to try any harder than I am! I put in my… well my adequate amount of effort and everything turned out alright.” Lorenz chimes in over his injury, “Our definitions must vary” spite rolling from his tongue. The rose-haired girl can’t help but roll her eyes, instead lending herself to Claude’s judgement once more. “I think we’ll all be content with your ‘adequate’ effort when we don’t flourish our skirmishes with Lorenz’s whines.” “Whines?!” the cart rocks some, “I could have fallen before your eyes and you speak to me of ‘whines’?!” The two nobles rope themselves into an all too common dispute of words. </p>
<p>Hilda’s attention was now being forced to the girl who sat beside her. “Marianne, do you think I’m putting in enough- uh, Marianne?” With all focus removed, Marianne gave a blank stare towards their professor, Byleth, who sat across from her in the cart. If he were aware of the gaze, he certainly didn’t make as much clear, instead choosing to draw his attention towards the snowscape they traversed. </p>
<p>“Marianne… Mariaaanne. Marianne!” The slouched girl finally jolted up to something that may by some be called proper posture, curling her form in Hilda’s direction with a pitiable gaze. “Oh, sorry Hilda… I was… Thinking, it’s not important…” “Not important?” With her own gaze following Marianne’s, Hilda spied the point of intrigue for the mage. Then, with a nearly coy smile, she pulls at her arm, suggesting attention away from the professor. “Now, you’ll have all week to gawk at the professor in class Marianne...” Then, with a nigh predestined reaction, she recoils, shaking her head with a gawk of apprehension, “No! Hilda it’s- n-no it’s nothing like that…!”</p>
<p>The pair noticed it in tandem, how their professor’s eyes stared over, having shifted independently from the rest of his skull. Scleras the lightest sallow hue one could muster, irises a dulled blue hue, and his pupils, draining any light which invaded their space. With face bare of any amusement, any feeling, and perhaps even any thought, Byleth’s eyes drag away, perpetuating their stare off the cart’s edge; He’d watch the snow continue it’s settle.</p>
<p>Hilda only muttered for Marianne, “...I hope it’s nothing like that…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“...You’re not mad?” Marianne was only beginning to be away with her boots, settling herself onto the edge of her friend’s bed. “Of course I’m not mad, besides, you’re the one who said it was nothing. If you have eyes for the professor… well, I won’t mind. Maybe we can ask him to pay us a visit--” ''No! Eugh n-no Hilda…!” Letting fingers shroud her candied lips, the chipper lass giggles at her own proposal. “I’m only teasing Marianne, I can’t imagine you’d be ready for something like that and… besides, the professor he’s uh… he’s kind of weird, don’t you think?” Peeling her gloves off by the finger, Hilda studied into the girl, awaiting an answer. “I… He’s strange, yes… he’s certainly seemed different ever since… ever since whatever happened in the forest…” Now discarding her blazer, Hilda hummed with the conversation, chiming in, “Oh, you mean when his hair got all shimmery and stuff? Yeah, he looks like a lime now…” Marianne, stoic as she may be, can’t deny giggling at the comment. “Ahaha...! Yes, that’s what I’m talking about I suppose, but it’s more than that… The professor used to be so… so blank, he never really seemed to feel anything, but now…” “But now he’s always staring. His eyes creep me out more than anything… Anytime he looks at me, I feel like I’ve done something wrong…” “Is it because you aren’t doing your assignments?” With skirt shimmying to her ankles and left in naught but her smallclothes, Hilda scoffs. “Well, it’s kinda- yeah it’s that, but also, just when I’m walking around the monastery, he’ll see me and I… I feel like…” Hilda seemed to express a rare discomfort, writhing in place as though she wore her own skin wrong, “I feel… I-it makes me wish I were somewhere else…” She never noticed it had happened, but Marianne had closed the distance between the two, laying absently trembling digits across Hilda’s shoulders. “...We shouldn’t talk bad about someone behind their back…” With a sigh, what melancholic air she had about her evaporated, restoring the pink-haired student to her usual self. “I know Mari…” the space between them grew thin, Hilda consuming her partner’s vision, “I know…”</p>
<p>Stepping in some uncoordinated waltz, the two allowed their lips to reacquaint themselves, having grown restless from the morning’s skirmish. Marianne has to bite at the air between kisses, while Hilda skillfully takes into her nose, and gives out of her mouth, allowing a restless push of intimacy. “Hilda…” She can hardly open her mouth afore being silenced by the cherry flavored maw beating into her. Stumbling back towards the bed, Marianne drops her bottom to the mattress's edge in a graceless display, it could almost be seen as forfeit. </p>
<p>She knew what to do at this point, and was eager to apply what she’d been taught. With arms raised above her head in an expectant manner, Marianne had her blazer pulled up by Hilda, halting removal just short of her elbows, locking her arms within loose shackles of fabric. Body, much like mind, knew what to feel at this very moment. Her heart jumped, her legs shook, and nails began raking at the wall. Lips, who parted simply to please, began to pressure Marianne’s neck, her collar, her breast, her very each rib that lead Hilda down and towards her lower half. In a moment of reflex, the mage’s spine wretches, jerking along itself as pleasure shoots up from the heat between her thighs. “Hil… Hilda…! Hilda!” She yapped without reason, merely squealing into the air whines of encouragement. The girl below, who’d nestled herself between her partner’s legs, knew full well how fine a job she was doing, she knew it the moment her hearing was muffled by the squeeze of legs around her head. Skull full of heat, tongue lining itself with that familiar tang, fingers clutching onto the flesh of her lover’s thighs, Hilda lost herself to the moment, allowing her mind to wash out with a delirious heat. Marianne, she too, would allow herself to be lost. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Consciousness, reality, and the dry fact of being lucid, fades to Marianne within what may have been hours, no one was keeping time after all. She comes to, hands weakly pressed to Hilda’s chest, and feebly clutching at the warm skin before her. In such a naked embrace, it became apparent just how cold the winter was getting, spurring Marianne to cling onto Hilda’s absent, resting, body. Such heat brings the girl’s flesh simple pleasure, swathing her in a comfort only she knew in that very moment. The air of the room, however, does not let up in it’s sprawl, spreading across the bare back, forcing her body to feel, generally, and obtusely, uncomfortable.</p>
<p>The drowsy hold cannot perpetuate forever. Before long, and without Hilda’s knowing, Marianne is decent once more, prime to away herself to her dorm proper. She never minded sleeping in Hilda’s room, it was waking up and having to face others in the morning that brought her trouble. It was still late, however, when the moon invaded dormitory windows, sneering into the students’ privacies. </p>
<p>Leather boot-heels thump onto the hall’s wooden floorboards, though rang too faint to truly disturb anyone abed at such a ghastly hour. Marianne’s room was towards the stairs from Hilda’s, prompting her to make a simple, one direction advancement through the corridor. </p>
<p>Such trembling hands, Marianne knew not if it was from the cold, her ill form, or something else entirely. She brought herself to twist at the door’s knob regardless, soft mechanical clicks within the wood welcoming her back. ...Yet something held her still, something outside her proximity, and far beyond her control. Paralysis, she had read such a term in some books yet never truly experienced as such, is this what it felt like? Her door was ‘open’, yet she couldn’t push it in, even entering her chambers was made impossible. Legs and fingers began to feel numb, though she wasn’t sure if she hadn’t woken up yet, or if the cold was simply chewing at her limbs. The one thing she felt upon her, were two things in truth, boring into her skull, locking her in place, forcing her hand stagnant. Eyes. She felt eyes in her skull, and all she could do was meet them with her own. </p>
<p>Time between seconds never felt longer, her head skewing along it’s neck like a rusted axle, shaking down the opposite end of the hall, unknowing of what it was who peered to her. He is sudden, stark, and subtle, all at once. An ebon cloaked figure beyond her range of focus, wearing a bed of lime green hair. The professor barely seemed human, in fact he hardly seemed there at all, dwelling at the farthest distance of the hall, he could very easily be a mirage for all she knew. Eyes, those very same ones that bore into Marianne’s skull, seemed to be his most human instruments of all, flickering like a cat’s in the night. She did not smile, nor nod, nor wave, greet, blink, welcome, or shoo. She simply stared back, and suddenly, wished to return to Hilda’s room, everything there was much more familiar than the dry, frozen, hall she found herself in. </p>
<p>Without warning, he blinks, and as though free from a spell, Marianne’s head turns in a fever, arms stretching towards the door and yanking herself into the room. Now granted the freedom of panic, breaths heaved from her breast in a frigid haste, numbed fingers fighting to lock her door, keeping any and all potential predators far away from her own flesh. Within her walls, she was safe from all but herself. But she’d risk her own company before being thrown out there once more. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Waking up from her rest was nearly as trying as finding it in the first place. She fought a battle, allowed a partner to exhaust her body, and nearly lost all pigment on the journey back to her room. Despite such a tumultuous day, Marianne was kept up for another hour and a half before finding rest once more. What pulled her out of bed with any finality were the raps at her door. “Marianne! We have stable duty today, c’mon!” The voice, it wasn’t Hilda’s, it was spunkier, yet somehow not quite as sweet, perhaps that was a good thing. “I’ll… Let me get dressed, Leonie, I’ll… I’ll be down…” With a quizzical stare at the door she spoke to, Leonie nodded against all better judgement. “Uh, okay… Just, meet me there, okay? Don’t keep me waiting.”</p>
<p>The walk from her dorm to the stables is a peaceful one, the morning bites of cold, and the sun illuminates the frost settling itself across Garreg Mach, yet Marianne proceeds with a tension. It isn’t until she finds Leonie at the stables that she feels true relief; Relief that she hadn’t seen Hilda. There was nothing against Hilda, just that Marianne didn’t particularly enjoy working if she was around is all, she didn’t like disappointing her. “Oh, here already? That didn’t take long at all… Say, are you okay? ...Get enough sleep last night?” Not bothering to meet Leonie’s gaze, the mage rounds up a brush for the horses, shaking her head, “No… No I didn’t sleep well at all…”</p>
<p>Stable duty with Leonie is always a subtly pleasurable experience for the tepid young woman. Neither of the two bother speaking to the other, yet know full well they’re each capable of doing their job. Each time they finish however, Leonie says the same line, “We did some great work, see you next week!” When she hears that, Marianne can’t help but smile.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll have to get Dorte some of that feed he likes…” The thought could occur to any caretaker, but it struck Marianne quite true due to her innate affinity for animals. Just looking at them allowed her to get an idea of what they were thinking, what they wanted. It never worked on people though, trying to figure what they wanted, she’d tried plenty before.</p>
<p>If such were allowed, perhaps every student would be nestled within their dorms this time of year, allowing the cold to whet away at Garreg Mach’s walls. But work needed being done, so endure it they would. Being exposed to the world and those who lived in it was a burden everyone bore. </p>
<p>It is within the cathedral where a congregation of students flock and disperse ad nauseum. The church was persistent with its teachings, some professors extrapolating such even further. Byleth stood as picturesque as an obelisk, with his back to the masses, and eyes to the altar. So long had his thoughts been dictated by that little voice prancing about in his mind, that now being without it, thinking seemed to come scarcely to him at all.</p>
<p>Whatever feeling occurs within himself is felt like a plucked nerve, his body quietly quaking in instinct at every sensation. He felt it well, how eyes dug into him, how gazes would vie to away with his layers only to find total absence of meaning. Such sensations were familiar, so to feel a foreign pair bore into his head… Byleth’s entire body heightens, boots carefully coordinating his person to turn a clean 180 degrees. </p>
<p>The source of the gaze was met with one similarly infesting, Byleth’s eyes nearly assaulting Marianne’s. Distance from the night before seemed familiar now, only there was an awfully apparent clarity to it all. Details of the professor, they all rose to the surface, presenting themselves to the student; The alien sheen of his hair, a dull reflection off his pauldrons, skin rich and deep, like clay given life. And of course, his eyes, even from their distance, carried an off-put, malintent; A quiet hostility aimed at no individual in particular. </p>
<p>The very same feelings Marianne's become so familiar with surfaced themselves once more, she wished to be back in her room, in Hilda’s room, anywhere but here, away from him, away from her own body and into someone less vulnerable to his attention. Yet when his eyes left her own, anxiety faded, her heartbeat steadied, and everything was mundane once again. Even as the professor seemed to approach his student she felt no sort of fear, for his eyes grew complacent and stared straight through her. Eyes did not meet again as they stepped past each other, both parties taking themselves to their respective duties. Marianne could feel eyes in her head as she very well had the night before, and could only assume, he was looking back on her. Wrong she’d be proven, by the overlooked, twin-tailed girl, who kept her presence unknown within the pews. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Silence is an element to be anticipated along the second floor of the monastery, particularly within the walls of the library. With no librarian at the moment, traffic within such a place thinned out, and thus so did the demands for quiet. “Where were you this morning?” Hilda was sat at one of the tables built for reading, though she merely used it to spectate. “I… I went back to my room last night, while you were still asleep…” Marianne was reorganizing some of the books for her own sake, when hours did not demand her presence, and the stables were filled beyond comfort, she’d find herself retreating to these page bound halls. The entirety of the area smelled aged, as if time had been flowing around it for decades, while it decided to stick in the past. Hilda was not particularly fond of the scent of old books, but Marianne held a quiet comfort for the flavor. “You don’t have to sneak out you know, I know when people leave their dorms and when it’s safe for us to slip out unseen. I can be clandestine too ya know.” Speaking with playful lick to her voice, Hilda simply watches the back of Marianne’s head work. “...I know, I just... wanted to be in my room I suppose.” While the devout’s smile is visible from the awkward angle, her eyes are not. For whatever reason, it makes Hilda’s smile drain, and the conversations peters to a still. </p>
<p>Before silence can take reign once again, the clatter of leather and flight of pages fills the air. Books lined Marianne’s perimeter, dropped about haphazardly. “O-oh no… I’m sorry, I-I’ll get it…” By the time Marianne’s bent over to pick one of them up, Hilda’s by her side, beaming once more. “Sorry for what? I don’t exactly care for these old books.” Disallowing any answer, Hilda leads the klutz over to a table, sitting her down before tending to the mess herself. “Oh Marianne, you’re hopeless… Here, watch how I organize them…” Smiling along, Marianne watches as Hilda makes good work of tending to her mess. She always was better at organizing the books and, like clockwork, Marianne’d thank her. “You’re right, sorry I can’t really… I guess I’m no good at organizing the books am I?” Humming out a tame giggle, Hilda peers over her shoulder. “Well, you just need a little help is all Marianne.” Being stared at like that, the poor, sheepish girl, was nearly forced into wearing a love-drunk smile. “I can be that help...”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So another day mounted it’s stay, the sun allowing it’s set. Hilda found her way back towards her dorm, letting Marianne have a moment of solitude. ...Though, she bore a morbid curiosity that couldn’t be shaken. Before retreating to her room, Hilda took a diversion towards the cathedral, kiting her distance a fair bit. Eyes brushed over her as she entered, it wasn’t exactly a neck of the monastery she frequented, so she stuck out like a pink thumb. Staying towards the back of the grand structure, Hilda could so faintly make out what she had anticipated.</p>
<p>Marianne, she was standing before the professor, looking up towards him, while he stared down in turn. His lips moved for but a moment, she swore she saw it, he was saying something to Marianne, to <i>her</i> Marianne, but his words she knew naught. Ideas sprang up within her head, uninvited, unwanted, ideas. Hilda let insecurity take over her mind, and before long, her body followed suit. </p>
<p>Breathing was unhindered, and her heartbeat unrelented. Rosy skin began to heat in a way that befit it’s hue, even she wasn’t positive what she felt. Anger? Despair? But why? Marianne was simply speaking with the professor, what difference did any of it make? </p>
<p>Her shallow breaths suddenly hitched within her throat, coming to an all so sudden halt. ...Were they holding hands the entire time? Did Marianne grab his? Or did the professor grab hers? Why did it matter? Again, what difference did it make to her? Hilda, she didn’t know what to think, only how she felt. So covetous, possessive, <i>jealous</i>. Why was she feeling this petty feeling within her chest, her tightening, abrasive, chest. Turning on her heel with an audible, rubber, squeak, she abandoned the cathedral, keeping her head low and speeding towards her dorm. </p>
<p>Shallow breaths suddenly resumed all at once, inhales warping into sharp gasps whilst her vision started to blur. It’s not like they’re a couple or anything, at least, neither of them ever said they were. But some part of Hilda must have forgotten, must have clung to a lofty idea of intimacy, some fluffy pink dream that could never fully realize. Hilda’s thoughts extrapolate and dramatise themselves. “They were just holding hands dammit!” rings silently in her mind, only to be followed, “They were <i>holding hands</i> dammit!” </p>
<p>She knows not when it happens, but the knob to her dorm ends up clutched within her grasp, twisted in an envious frustration. But something held her there. Hilda, whether she wanted it or not, stayed locked in place, squeezing at the round, brass, mechanism. Her door was ‘open’, yet she couldn’t push it in, even entering her chambers was made impossible. But for her, the hall was empty in truth.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Purple Sun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“...” Marianne was silent. The setting sun let it’s light be filtered through pale, stained glass, beams hardly reaching the pair. Being so close now, the professor seemed much more human, the air of life breezing from his nostrils. Neither of them could bring themselves to speak, or perhaps, they believed it better to bask in silence. All to be heard was the rise of their chests, the dull clatter of footsteps, and the occasional utterance of what was no longer a silent prayer. </p><p>Being a student of his, she had seen Byleth’s face countless times past in both the classroom and battlefield. But within such an intimate range, it was as if she saw him clearly for the first time; As though she’d finally found permission. Now she could truly meet his gaze in confidence, losing her own intention within his mute blue gaze.</p><p>Listening to that silence of his, Marianne awaited any passing thought, any sudden spark of intuition, insight into what the professor thought of her. Yet he was still no animal so, if he had any thoughts, they remained his own. Desperate for some meaning to their encounter, Marianne spoke in such an inoffensive and undirected manner that one may believe she’d been talking to herself. “...You should stay away from me, I… I only bring misery…” </p><p>“I know.” Byleth’s voice hisses on a breathy, trebled, note. Such a strange thing for Marianne to hear, indeed she had grown accustomed to empty pleasantries being spoken of her anytime she made mention of her ill presence. To hear such a thing, from the <i>professor</i> no less… Still fighting to stand as tall as she could muster, her head began to hang whilst looking into the floor with glossed eyes. </p><p>What brings her back to the present is a sudden tension taking seize of her hands. While hers were rather clammy, the professor’s palms felt calloused and dry. “I’m okay…” Why did she say that? Even Marianne didn’t know in truth, perhaps it was spoken out of instinct. </p><p>The professor’s reaction was, seemingly, nonexistent. Never did his hands squeeze further into hers, nor did fingers rub, lips part, or eyes blink. They simply remained, fully tolerant of the other’s presence. </p><p>In that moment, Marianne swore she could hear the squeak of rubber.</p><p> </p><p>Making way down the stairs from the upper level dormitories was a certain Claude von Riegan. Boots fell beneath him with a steady rhythm, one that was suddenly off put by someone’s rapid ascension up the steps. Nearly colliding as they both turned the corner, Claude and Hilda are brought face to face. Staggered so slightly by the narrowly avoided crash, the Riegan heir starts, “Whoa there! Where do you think you’re off to in such a…” Coming to realize the girl’s state, his demeanor fades, a visage of worry taking over. “Whoa…”  Before either of them knew, Hilda’d thrown herself onto the house leader, holding her every breath with shut eyes. “Hey, hey… It’s… y-you’re alright... it’s okay...” He didn’t know what was going on, or how to react, but Hilda didn’t need him to. She merely clutched at his back, fabric wadding within her grasp. Claude held her in return, letting broken breaths hum throughout the stairwell. </p><p> </p><p>“So, I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?” Keeled over her bed whilst Claude leaned against the door, Hilda swabbed away smudged makeup with an ivory neckerchief, her face turned from the man. “Can you-” she sniffles “-please take this seriously…?” “Oh I am, trust me I am, but… well, what, you saw poor Marianne talking with the professor? I mean I know you’re upset but… is that it?” Finally swallowing down the frog in her throat, Hilda huffs, turning back to face him. “You know it’s not that simple Claude you’re… you’re too smart for that.” Nodding without a modicum of pride, he ripostes, “You’re right there. The part about it not being simple, I mean. I can tell when you’ve got crocodile tears, but this… this is an ugly cry.” “Wow, thanks for that, really…” </p><p>“So for real, tell me what it is about this that has you so upset…”</p><p>Not even taking a seat, Hilda stands at the edge of her bed, facing the floor beneath her as arms crossed in careful thought. “...It’s stupid… I saw her, Marianne, looking at the professor like… like the way we all used to look at him, before he changed… She looked like she was so interested in him like- l-like how…” With a weighted exhale of frustration breaking her momentum, Hilda starts up once again. “Like, I don’t know. It shouldn’t upset me right? We aren’t… exclusive, we’re just friends who do things is all so… so like, she <i>always</i> looks at me like I’m so great… She gives me that smile like… she looks at me like she’s…” Her words begin to drag between each other more and more. “...s-so… happy to be with me… I don’t want her looking at other people like that I guess- but th-that’s stupid too because like, she didn’t even look at him like she was happy! She was staring at him like how I imagine Hubert stares at his rats before eating them…!” Claude interjects, “Uh, what?” “I-I don’t know what he does I’m just saying stuff…”</p><p>Trailing herself off, Claude allows a moment of silence, a time to collect his own thoughts and comments. “Do you want Marianne to be happy?” “Claude…” she doesn’t bother meeting his eyes, “...you know the answer… and I already know what you’re probably gonna say, that I should let her do what makes her happy but…” “...But it’s not that easy, is it?” Staring outside, Hilda observes the snowflakes dusting her window, “No… of course it isn’t…” </p><p> </p><p>That night, Marianne slept alone. She had knocked at Hilda’s door only once before receiving no answer, “She must be asleep” she thought to herself, before deciding to do the same. </p><p>It must have been just beyond midnight when Marianne woke so suddenly. The blankets once strewn across her had ended up half drawn to the floor, a fact only made visible by the moon’s intruding sheen. The lunar presence had begun to wane, however, it’s phase on the first legs of a farewell. </p><p>In what felt like a restless state, Marianne brought herself to wobbling feet, similarly lethargic ankles putting in ample effort to keep her from collapsing straight backwards. Without a sound beyond the feeble breaths she eschewed out, she found herself wandering her own dorm in a pointless dawdle. She stared over belongings, each one having been seen hundreds of times by her already. Faith books, a half tended desk, training swords collecting dust beneath her bed, and flowers from her birthday… she remembered well when the professor bought them; At the time she felt nothing, now they seemed only to be a dim reminder of times past. He wasn’t like how he was back then anymore, was he? </p><p>For the first time in months, she took the potted plant within her grasp. Lifting it revealed a small circle where dust had been forbidden from gathering. The girl and her flower, it was a lily of the valley, travelled over to the window together. With a free hand flicking the hitch upwards, Marianne suggests the glass to open wide, an immediate sheet of cold reeving across her chambers. It was dreadful windy, much more so than the silence implied. Her whole body cringed at the sudden chill, Marianne had to fight the urge to slam the opening shut and slip right back into bed. Instead, she placed the pot upon the sill, both hands now furling at window’s edge, pulling her torso towards the turbulent night winds. </p><p>As unrelenting as the dark morning’s breeze was, it was cathartic regardless. Painfully refreshing,uncomfortably pleasant, calmingly cool. What was abrasive over time became a welcome numbness, crawling beneath her nightgown and up within her thighs. She felt it across her cheeks, breast, her fingers especially. And each time she inhaled, the pain teetered to become a tad more insufferable. </p><p>After a time of resting along her window, all the while accepting the silent noise of night into her mind, Marianne had an electric realization. She felt a stuckness, a refusal to move from her immediate state. All at once, in a desperate assumption, she shoves off the wall, dedicating her whole body to unfastening any locks upon her door and being quit of the wooden barrier. In an instant, she was in the hall, eyes shooting about to see… nothing. </p><p>There was no one, and there was no thing. She was absolutely alone within the wooden corridor, a breeze from the window now pouring around her ankles. In a meek display privy to none but herself, Marianne returned to her chambers, sealing the glass shut, and retreating beneath her covers. By the time the fogs of sleep returned, her fingers and toes both burned in awkward acclimation from the cold. </p><p> </p><p>In the morning sun’s offensive display of radiance, Hilda comes to find herself stirring awake. Utterly drained, delirious, and, quite simply, parched, she bore the impression that the day would be against her. But Hilda Valentine Goneril was a quitter, not a loser, she wouldn’t let such emotional, not to mention physical, turbulence get the better of her. </p><p>In a spur of action, Hilda sets herself before a mirror, deftly discarding her cheeks of smeared makeup from the previous night’s episode. Instead she dolled herself up proper once more, as she’d always done. The aggressive heat that once flooded her skin had long since faded, yet, something had to be done about the hollowness she felt in her chest. </p><p>She had to do <i>something</i>.</p><p>The next time Hilda sees Marianne is upon walking into class. Everyone, bar the professor, is present and accounted for in their usual seats. Hilda sits herself beside the blue-headed mage, sharing but a single pleasant glance with her. There was much she wished to say but… it could wait for now. </p><p>The pair sat in silence, a fine juxtapose to the rest of the room. Ignatz, who was sat between Leonie and Raphael, had to strain himself to perpetuate two conversations at a time. Lorenz and Claude, while they had the ability to stay to themselves, rarely did, instead opting to slyly pick at one anothers’ ego. As for Lysithea and Flayn, well they let it all happen. </p><p>What noise there is gets cut not long after the door opens once more. Dense footsteps crack through the now hushed classroom, the professor’s cloak beating down onto itself. No one looked directly towards him, and he seemed to not truly look at anything either at all. Instead, he takes position behind his desk, keeping his back towards students afore putting chalk to the board, quietly picking up the lesson from last time. Hilda, though quiet as she stayed, kept close watch on the eyes of Marianne and the professor both. To her pleasure, the two never even tempted sharing a glance.</p><p> </p><p>Marianne, making her way out of the class, had her route cut short by Hilda. Fingers snared her own, bringing the meek girl to pull her eyes out from between her feet, and towards Hilda’s gaze. “Uh… Did you want something?” With a smile sick with purity, Goneril gives her head a tepid shake, beginning to pull Marianne off in some separate direction. “Mmm… Just come with me okay?” Uncertain of what exactly to feel, she murmurs back, “What’s… w-what’s going on? Did I do something wrong?” A firm tug seems to stifle Marianne’s words, “Just come on, okay?”</p><p>Within moments that felt like minutes, and minutes that felt like seconds, the girls were back in Hilda’s room, and it seemed as if more of the same was scripted to occur. “Hilda I can’t really… I don’t have time…” Hilda rebukes with a sudden motion, taut, steady, arms taking Marianne’s wrists in a crude grasp. Suddenly, limp hands were held above her head and pinned to the wall. “H-Hilda? What’s-?” Shut up by lips to her own, Marianne’s forced to heave what little breath she has from her nostrils. </p><p>If Hilda had any answers, it seemed she wanted to keep them clandestine. As for her partner, she seemed to crack beneath the sudden affection. Inebriated by the poignant scent of strawberries, Marianne allows her leg to hike up some, gently bending around Hilda’s backside to pull her body in. Something was up with Hilda, she didn’t know what, but Hilda was never so dismissive, so brazen…</p><p>The sun now on it’s pleasant descent, painted the room in rosy, orange hues. Though, he did cast his beam across the desk, painting the wall in a shadow. Within such a shadow, Hilda and Marianne were alone. Their moment made truly, and absolutely secret. No one else would see how the other made her partner writhe or squirm. No one but the other. </p><p>“Hil… Hilda…” That very same girl didn’t express any response, instead sifting her nose along the creases of Marianne’s blazer, working towards her neck. “What’s… what’s the matter with you? You’re being… you’re acting d-different…” Hilda’s eyes crept along her prey’s jaw, admiring how her skin hid in the dark of their room, how her cheeks rosied with a warmth, how her tears glistened even in… wait… “Marianne, why are- w-what’s wrong? Am I… I’m sorry I took it too far I...” Frail digits curled around a tough wrist pinning them in place, leading Hilda’s own palm along Marianne’s body. Fanning her fingers out, Hilda found her final destination to be just beneath her partner’s left breast. “Do you feel that…?” “Yeah… You’re heart’s beating like crazy…” Marianne, with tears staining over her cheeks, breaks out in a sobbing giggle, smiling like a fool for Hilda. “...Keep going Hilda, I’m…” Thumbs wiped Marianne’s tears away, before pulling her in for another kiss, lips melting into one another. “Hopeless, you’re so hopeless Marianne…” The orange hues behind Hilda faded away as Marianne’s eyes fell shut, her own lips fighting back. “...That’s why I have you…”</p><p>Remaining in their shadowy corner of the world, Marianne took hold of the desk beside her, backside turned in Hilda’s direction. Breathing was becoming difficult, indeed, all she could manage to do was hold on, wheeze, and stare back towards whatever intention Hilda had for her. For a moment that passed all too swiftly, Hilda’s face was privy to the sun’s most favored hues. She was standing tall, taking a moment to admire her quarry. Perhaps something had made her realize just how grateful she ought to be.</p><p>In an instant, Marianne feels the shock of air in the room beating onto her bare thighs as her skirt is deliberately hiked over the waist. That coolness melts away as warm hands sink over her smallclothes, Hilda yanking herself closer by the waistband. “Hilda my…” Cut off by an excess of attention, Marianne suffers a heated palm taking seize of her right breast, sending her voice to peter off. “Your… what?” Such confidence in her voice, a condescension in her control, is this what people hated about Hilda? “My… my body, it’s on fire…!” That was the spur of ego she needed to hear. With strength befitting of her physique, Hilda yanks at the blazer she held so firm. </p><p>Buttons popping open Marianne’s apparel fill the room with a telling audio, that intrusive breeze covering her breast. “I… I’m yours… All yours…” Hilda didn’t know Marianne was capable of such words, in truth, Marianne might not have been aware either. Where cold struck, heat followed, Marianne’s cloth clad chest soon burden to no cloth at all, being subject only to the push and squeeze of Hilda’s desire. She was unaccustomed to such attention, let alone this degree of passion. </p><p>“How does it feel when I touch…” A palm to the hip, another to her chest, both rob a dull squeeze. “...here?” Struggling to speak over a parched throat, Marianne heaves, nails beginning to rake at the desk she leaned upon. “Good… It’s…” Trailing off, she allows Hilda to prattle on, the grasp upon her hip spreading around, down, beneath the front of her panties. “And when I touch…” </p><p>A sudden arch of the back, eyes muddling up, teeth snaring onto one another. “Good! It’s…! Oh, o-oh Goddess!” If she took a hand to cover her own mouth, Marianne’d surely fall to the ground like a proper runt, instead she silences herself by another means. Digging her teeth into the edge of the very same desk she clutched, Marianne allows her body to rock with Hilda’s each whim. She thought herself a sinner, and certainly felt the part as well, each inch of her body burning as though she died and fell to hell. </p><p>Hilda’s fingers stir and drag within Marianne, adding to the room’s orchestra a smacking stickiness, and the rock of the desk across floorboards. Were Marianne’s mouth not busy chewing away, it’d be dedicated to letting her need spill out in a proper vocal performance. “You know… I was pretty mad when I saw you and the professor… Holding hands and stuff I mean...” The sudden topic doesn’t drain from her efforts, instead it spurs a shocked Marianne to react. “Y-you saw that-? A-aaanh…!” Spittle runs down her tongue and flicks from her chin, she shouldn’t have stopped biting down, she knew it. “I… It’s not like that it’s…“ Whatever it is, Marianne can’t put it into words, instead dedicating her efforts to letting Hilda know just how well she was getting to her, hopelessly whining with every push she suffers against the desk. “Shh… I’m okay now Marianne… just relax and let me…” fingers within Marianne spread out, pushing against all resistance, “...you know…” Growling from the base of her throat like a riled up dog, Marianne nods, letting her head hang in a hopeless manner. </p><p> </p><p>“...Why were… is that why you were acting weird?” Marianne, now held in a half naked embrace atop Hilda’s bed, almost felt guilty for what she had done, making Hilda feel jealous apparently. “Seeing you and the professor like that made me… yeah, I guess uh… I guess it made me act weird, that’s all… I was so upset when I saw it-” “Why? I… I thought you said it wouldn’t make you mad, you even suggested we do… things with him…” Her eyes roll beneath closed lids, battleworn arms keeping Marianne close to her heart. “I told you that was a joke remember? ...But I’m sorry, I shouldn’t… like, get jealous, we aren’t even…” Eyes opened to the sun nearly gone, purple shades brought out in the dark of the room. “...we aren’t even dating…” </p><p>It’s not uncommon for Marianne to remain quiet, but in this moment, it seems as though an answer, a follow up, anything, it’s anticipated, expected even. “...I don’t…” Body language translates from a comforted embrace, to a somewhat cagey recoil, “...I don’t think… That I’m right to… to date…” Her words hum in the air, deftly crawling over Hilda’s heart as though staying in the open any longer would just taint the mood. Hilda mumbles in a show of vulnerability, ears suddenly hot at what she’d just heard. “I… get it… I don’t think that I… I mean l-like…” Her breath picks up, hands rubbing Marianne’s in what she knew was vain. “I get it b-but, don’t… like it…” Choking on emotions she felt more often than she’d like to admit, Hilda sputters out in a volume that even Marianne struggles to hear. “Why am I like this…” With mouth agape and prime to speak, Marianne withdraws comment, instead only thinking such things to herself. </p><p>“What do you want me to say.”</p><p> </p><p>This night, Marianne would sleep with Hilda, tangled between each other to face the night in tandem. While neither of them could sleep so easily, they still remained silent. Before long, their breaths even synced together. The silence is short lived however when one of them asks… </p><p>“What do you like so much about the professor?”</p><p>Shifting into Hilda a tad more, Marianne mutters against her, “I told you it’s not-” “I didn’t say it was like that just… what do you like about him as… as a person, as our professor?” Processing the question, she sinks some, thinking back to what little time she’d had with him. It takes a while, a bit too long in Hilda’s mind, but eventually her patience is rewarded.</p><p>“The professor is so strong… isn’t he? After his father passed away, he kept teaching us all, and we were all there for him… It made us all feel like his family, didn't it? Then the professor got sucked into that… that thing in the sealed forest… Hilda, I was so scared we were going to lose the professor… And… we kind of did, didn’t we? He hasn’t been the same since, he’s so much more… He’s kind of like a lizard now, yeah? Always staring at us when we don’t know it, rarely speaking, and… well I don’t know if he cares as much for us as he used to… How he is now, after all that he’s been through, maybe… Maybe the goddess wills it… it feels so mad that… that is has to be the goddess’ will… and now we have to do our parts in enacting that...” Hilda, with her true expression hidden over Marianne’s shoulder, ponders. “Marianne, I was asking what you <i>liked</i> about him…?”</p><p>“...Well maybe that’s just it…”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oh I wrote this on Hilda's birthday so she gets to have sex :woozy_face:</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Playing Shepard</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had not occurred to her, just how long she had been by herself. Hilda, who was lying on her back, faced the sun, finding herself able to stare directly into it. Strange, how the illustrious thing failed to burn at her pupils. The field she was in had a similar curiosity to it, despite how wide the sun grew, blades of grass beneath her carried no such warmth. In truth, the day felt more like night. </p>
<p>Perhaps such an oddity was because it was simply winter. Snow drifted down and atop Hilda’s person, chilling what facets of her skin they managed to creep upon. Even if it was a struggle to do as much, Hilda rose to her feet, treading over the snowscape and towards Garreg Mach.</p>
<p>Each step she took lifted a weightier burden of snow than before. Dense, wet, powder kicks up before her path, causing her to stumble some. It was piling faster than she could manage, the unrelenting bite of cold reeving at her knees. </p>
<p>Picking herself up into a run, Hilda’s breaths ran short. It felt as though ice were beneath her feet, stilling her sprint in place, each breath of hers clogging airways with powdery death. However fast she thought she could run didn’t come to show. Despite being congested in place by the frosted dust weighing on her chest, Hilda slid within the slush, out of her control. </p>
<p>In the sky, the sun still didn’t offer to burn her pupils dry. It may have happened when she blinked, or perhaps when distracted by a snowflake, but the sun, he stared back down at her. </p>
<p>He stared with a dull, blue, iris.</p>
<p>Eyes peel wide as Hilda finds herself within the bed she’d grown so accustomed to. She didn’t often remember dreams; It was the nightmares that seemed to cling to her mind instead. If anything, there was still a comforting presence, Marianne resting beside her. Once sweat stuck skin had become so slightly damp latching onto itself in yearning, Hilda let herself yearn as well, pulling her partner’s arm near and dear to allow sleep once more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You <i>have</i> to go?” Fingers dragged Marianne in Hilda’s direction whilst the mage made a futile effort to get dressed again. “You know I have stable duty today…” “Mm… You can’t skip it just once?” Marianne was almost able to get her skirt back on. “That… wouldn’t be fair to Leonie.” “I know I’m just… Mm…” The whole of Hilda’s weight leaned onto Marianne, desperate grasps dragging along her back. Still without proper apparel, Marianne groans out a chuckle, “You’re heavy…” </p>
<p>Of course, the time does come when Hilda is without Marianne even if something of hers remains. The hollowness in her chest, despite everything she said last night, it was still there. She was adamant still, however, and wouldn’t let this turmoil topple her. She’d put on her makeup, again. She’d prep her hair, again. She’d prime herself to try, again. She wasn’t ready to quit, not when something was on the line.</p>
<p>The day followed the yester’s motions in an all too similar manner. By the time Marianne was rid of stable duty, class was prime to start, and when class was prime to start, Hilda was found beside her. As it always had been, the room became hushed when the professor arrived, no one looked to him, and he looked to no one. A day like all the others before it. </p>
<p>Hilda, who had retained yesterday’s watchful eye, clung to Marianne after class, tugging her along in a familiar direction. “Marianne, c’mon, there’s something I wanted you to-” Far behind Marianne, standing in silence and stillness both, was the professor. In the background of her vision, Hilda couldn’t reliably focus on both subjects at once. “...I uh… I’m sorry…” A clammy hand peels fingers from her arm, stepping away but a tad. “I have plans today… I actually had plans yesterday too but…” Hilda, coming to realize the implications, nodded so subtly she wasn’t even sure if the motion registered. “Oh uh, okay…” Wearing a mien that clearly didn’t look ‘okay’, she distracts her gaze, not quite sure what to do with herself. She’s given a purpose only when Marianne gives her hand a meek little squeeze, smiling for her. “Space is good… right? This… this’ll be good for us.” Hearing such a word puts self-conjured implications into Hilda’s mind, sending her into an instantaneous and short-lived state of glee. ‘Us’? “Yeah… I know Marianne…” In a brief motion, a swift display of bold affection, Hilda pulls her jaw near for a curt peck to the cheek. “I’ll see you later, okay?” Marianne, whose demeanor of surprise had warmed into one of abashedness, rubs where she’d been visited. “...Okay, I’ll see you then…”</p>
<p>Hilda cannot let herself be leave of the area so simply. She goes on to wander back towards her dorm but… cannot ignore that watchful eye. He stared over his shoulder, a sentinel who monitored each movement of Hilda’s. It’s as she said, as long as he keeps eye on her, she wishes to be anywhere else. “...Professor…” His focus is not entirely broken, but seems to suspend, eyes droning down towards Marianne who now stood at his feet. “Please… Don’t stare at Hilda like that…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Despite winter’s unopposed visit, snow had removed itself from Garreg Mach’s vicinity for the time being, though a chill remained regardless. Frosted blades of grass crunch beneath students’ feet, tendrils that grew along brick walls seemed to wither and halt all advancement, and the trees held their leaves in a show of steadfastness, not quite ready to give into the season’s assault. </p>
<p>Fighting the cold with eachothers’ company, Marianne and Byleth took a stroll throughout the hedges, remaining relatively silent. “Professor…” Upon hearing his title, eyes blink down towards Marianne, only glancing up on occasion to see where he was headed. “...do you think that it’s wrong for me to… to be with Hilda?” With the question heard, his eyes dart back ahead, remaining still as he meanders, composing a proper answer. “...You’re cursed. You could hurt her.” Enduring daggers of words thrown from his tongue, Marianne has to put in ample emotional effort to mull over his answer. “I… I know…” Still without putting in the care to look towards her, Byleth continues, “Do you care if she gets hurt?” “O-of course… I don’t want her to get hurt…” His words come quicker than even hers, “Then it’s wrong. You know you could hurt her, you don’t want her to get hurt, yet you get near her.” Marianne just remains quiet, wandering beside the professor and staring between her feet, perhaps glancing up to catch sight of a passing flower, but never speaking. “It’s selfish.”</p>
<p>“...No one talks to me like you do professor… Everyone… everyone tries to be nice and it’s…” Marianne’s arms clutch at each other, her face wearing a frustrated demeanor. “If they try to make me feel better, I know it’s artificial because they… they just waited for me to get upset before… before attempting to front as a good person...” Byleth wasn’t looking down at Marianne any longer, given his body language, it was hard to tell if he was listening to her at all. “...And if people check on me out of nowhere they never tell me what I need to hear… They just say more of the same… empty pleasantries is all they have for me…” His mouth moves as though slave to a servo, “If no one fixes a rabid dog, then everyone gets bitten. The first step is to address the problem.” Marianne, humored in some obtuse way, smiles towards the ground she tread upon, asking, “Am I… a rabid dog to you then, professor?” With eyes locked ahead, the only answer Byleth gave was a lengthy, nasal exhale. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“...You treat everyone to tea, right?” Answering with but a curt nod, Byleth primes the table for their little engagement. “Professor, am I a bad person for being around you? I… You shouldn’t be near me right? I bring-” “No, I invited you. If you bring me misfortune, it’s my own fault.” A steaming cup, one decorated in ornate floral patterns, slides before Marianne on the table. “So… why do you put yourself at risk? I don’t want to hurt you…” Byleth, now with a cup before himself as well, stares over and into Marianne. “I risk everyones’ lives everytime we go into battle. It’s only fair to jeopardize my own from time to time.” That was something Marianne could bring herself to smile over, taking a sip from her cup. “This blend is…” “It’s Almy-” “No…! Don’t tell me, I wish to guess…” Byleth would comply, watching Marianne study the tea with a very real intent. </p>
<p>“Almyran pine needle tea.” He gave the answer away regardless. “Professor… I… Well, I wasn’t going to guess that exactly, but you…” “I already said the first part, it wasn’t fair anymore. Next time, I’ll brew something you’re sure to guess, I’ll remain quiet as well.” Marianne must have sinned once more, for something or another brewed a fire within her gut. Wearing a smile that wasn’t sure if it was fully permitted or not, she queries, “...’Next time’?” The golem of a professor, who wore a gaze cut of stone, allowed a smile to sprout across his face, though his eyes didn’t play the part. His mouth parts at a calculated pace, “If you’d… appreciate as much.” She leaned across the table a smidgen, some unknown thread tugging her in the professor’s direction, though modest enough to keep liberal distance. “I would appreciate that… I’d… I’d like that a lot professor.” Just then, within the light of conversation, smiles blossomed into laughter; Restrained, endeared, laughter. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Time had passed plenty enough for shadows to paint across hedges like so many verdant canvases. Courtesy had left a while ago, allowing empty cups and the crumbs of pastries to decorate the once well kept table. “...” Conversation itself has died, neither party being able to discern which is withholding from speaking, or even if it’s anyones’ turn to say anything. Such bitter silence reaches the point in which Byleth shoots up in a manner abrupt enough to make Marianne hop in alarment. </p>
<p>“I’m leaving now.” He speaks while staring down on Marianne like a hawk might a shrew, turning to walk away before she could afford any response. She can only stare in wonder, still seated and now by herself. She had to think, “What did I get out of that?” Such a meaningless encounter, perhaps it didn’t have any right existing, yet… she found herself returning to what he had said. ‘Next time.’</p>
<p>If this is what it felt like to be without meaning, then Marianne prayed all life could be so shallow. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Traversing familiarly warm hues, Marianne meanders across the monastery on a decisively lengthier path to her dorm. There was beauty in relishment, she wished to bathe in that day for a time longer. Within her mind did haunt images of the professor’s elusive grin, reminders of how it felt for him to allude towards a second meeting. He knew just how dangerous she was, so why did he seem to try only harder to put himself in her path? </p>
<p>The clouds seemed to let themselves infest the sky, muddling the roaring blaze whispered out by the setting sun. Though it may have still been so bright, colors around Marianne seemed to die within the dark. Coming to form before her and so swift that she wasn’t sure if she saw it approaching or not, rose hued pigtails bounced to a halt before her. </p>
<p>“...So, how uh… was your day?” Hilda smiled; It was a plastic expression, one that was desperate to be true regardless. “I enjoyed myself… we had fun.” “Well I’m happy to hear that Marianne…” She knew a false smile a mile away, which was odd considering she so rarely engaged in smiling herself, but chose not to sour her day after it’d been spiked with such sweetness. Strolling past the girl and on her merry way, Marianne’s cut short by words ringing behind her. “Aren’t you gonna tell me what you two did?” “...You didn’t ask.” “I’m asking now. What’d you do?” “We had tea, and when we had nothing left to talk about, he left.” There’s a beat of silence. “...<i>Sure</i>.”</p>
<p>“Why do you say it like that?” “Oh! No reason. Marianne, if you don’t wanna tell me what you <i>really</i> did, that’s fine too, that’s all you have to say!” Her voice was stoked in a passive aggression, one that Marianne wasn’t well suited to combat. With her back still facing Hilda, she musters up a sputter of words, “I’m… telling you the truth Hilda.” “...Whatever Marianne… Just, whatever you say.” It was a bit of a rocky exchange, not unlike others that Marianne had experienced, but Hilda’s words did something to the girl. A pressure builds beneath her eyes, her mouth’s corners pulling wide. Just what she feared, her day had been soured right at its end. Marianne says nothing more, simply continuing on in her own direction, desperately sucking in any shaken breaths that fought out her maw. She had to be inside soon regardless, it was cold out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Marianne went through the motions; Hiking up the stairs, nearing her door, grabbing the knob, gritting her teeth, squeezing the knob, stifling angry sobs, “Damn it...!” kicking the door. The pain of impacting such hard wood only aches after a moment, but it’s plenty to quell the girl’s frustrations for now. Releasing hold of the door, Marianne palms away budding tears, eyes warming up red and puffy. Down the hall she stares, eyes fixed into that far corner, where she swore she saw him that one night. </p>
<p>In a mindless dawdle, she begins roaming down towards that corner, an invisible want leading her along. Each step allows wind to breeze straight through her chest, a fresh hollowness being so slowly filled by a trickle of warm thoughts; Thoughts of something else, someone else, somewhere else. </p>
<p>She’d come to realize, that night, just how cold the winter nights could get. Just how easily they lulled her to sleep.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Marianne would have her own dream that night.</p>
<p>She dreamt of being back in the sealed forest. Everyone was there, sifting through the glade together as a class. Marianne’s arms come to a halt though, while her legs lock and drag. Branches that seem to be low enough to trip at her ankles writhe and latch onto the girl. She’s dragged to the ground. Movement is made impossible, advancement made void. Marianne can’t move if she wanted to, and it seemed that she didn’t want anything of the sort.</p>
<p>Her body went slack, letting her clothes rip and tear within the abrasive foliage, skin running red with thin trickles of blood. Everyone looked past her, walking around and even over the snared girl with no intention of aiding her. Classmates and their silhouettes begin to fade into a fog. When did such a fog decide to arrive? She watched everyone vanish and, soon, could smell the burning leaves. She could hear it, the crackle of flame. See it, the encroaching blaze.</p>
<p>She wanted to give up, yet feared flame like a dog. Before she could make any choice however, her dream would end. Subject to darkness, a meaningless sleep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Eep... This took time to write, and it's kinda short... oopsie daisy &lt;:)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Breathless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Snow, while absent from Garreg Mach’s immediate grounds, fell liberally not far from the monastery’s walls. An expanse of buildings long since abandoned now blanketed beneath a thick layer of frozen dust. Throughout the once populous, and now nameless, city bandits make their brief respite. The golden deer, having arrived on behalf of the church, assume proper formation and prime themselves for battle. </p><p>    Each student has a purpose to be fulfilled. Each carrying themselves across checkered floors with the guidance and council of their professor; Raphael barrels towards opposition in a brutish manner, Lorenz carries with him a noble momentum, Leonie fights much like the professor in his mercenary days, Hilda combats with a reigned in necessity, Claude with a certain air of impression, Ignatz meets his usual standards of performance, Lysithea needs little aid in being rid of any opposed force, Flayn keeps the class in good spirit as well as health, and Marianne… Marianne always did act last amongst the pack, she thought it was because of her sickly form, if anyone would fall first it’d be her.</p><p>    Bandits are rarely seen in these environments, instead glimpses of their eyes flickering full of ill will come to focus only when it matters most, that is when blades clash. Even combat over a distance is a wild and unrestrained endeavor, with one not knowing if the other has fallen until they find themselves free of any assault. Combat was a storm, and Byleth stood tall as an obelisk, serving as the eye. </p><p>    A form that bleeds into the nooks of street-corners allows itself to bend a knee toward the ground, bloodied fingertips drawing back their bowstring. Bandits, being a wandering folk loyal only to coin, must make an effort never to get too attached to their fellow man. They are quiet, cruel, and avaricious. Sometimes the only differing factor between bandits and mercenaries is how well one is willing to be perceived by others. The very same silhouette who drew back his bow let loose an arrow, hurdling through the silent breeze with a whistle heard only to those who may be targeted by such an attack. </p><p> </p><p>    Marianne jerks her leg back to reel in her whole body as an evasive maneuver, dodging out the way of an axe’s drop. Her chest is scratched with labored breaths, the demanding physical toil only off put by her animalistic need to survive. A sword of crude iron make was all she had to defend herself, making gradual dents in the opponent’s defenses. She knew she was not well fit for swordplay, but the professor had unspoken plans for her, plans that demanded proficiency with a blade. </p><p>Such proficiency of course remains untested, as Marianne’s swing goes wide, allowing the bandit to riposte with a ripe gash across her gut. She doesn’t feel it at first, not until it becomes difficult to move. Just how deep was it? Her stomach was beginning to feel warm, could it have truly sunk so deep? Before her or the opponent could allow another strike, Marianne’s ear perks. A whistle? </p><p>
  <i>Thunk.</i>
</p><p>Similarly, it doesn’t immediately register. Marianne’s feet stagger backwards against each other, a hot wetness building within the creases of her belly, and trailing down her legs. It was warming her forehead as well, the arrow lodged in her skull. </p><p>She couldn’t think.</p><p>Like a panicked dog, she whines, breathing like mad and scratching at the arrow. She swore she could hear someone she knew screaming. The tool doesn’t want to leave her head, and when she jostles it, her brain feels like pins and needles. </p><p>Before long, thought becomes more painful than impossible, but futility would soon follow. Marianne, whose skin ran paler than any bone, slumps back against the wall of a nearby building, falling to a seat, and painting the pavement around her with red, liquid death.</p><p> </p><p>
  <i>Shatter.</i>
</p><p>Marianne was standing tall once again, her sword never having left it’s scabbard. Byleth, who at some time or another stood himself before the girl, looked her over. Where time stood still, Byleth was allowed total freedom. His thumb ran over her untampered forehead in a careful manner. Divine pulse was a common tool of his, and he’d grown used to watching his students die before bringing them back to their feet. </p><p>Moving Marianne’s hand to his, time’s hands backwards, the professor leads his student some ample distance from the bandit she was occupied with. This time, the battle was his.</p><p>It must have happened when Marianne wasn’t looking, but the professor stood in front of her, his back turned as he knocked an arrow towards the enemy. With the professor defending her, she knew how safe she truly was, so her focus was allowed to dwindle some. Indeed, her gaze turns lower, focusing on the footprints ahead. They were… misplaced. She hadn’t seen anyone walk there before, and clearly remembered no prints of any kind being present earlier. What’s more, she did manage to recognize the pattern of the prints immediately. When did the professor leave such tracks? How did he know Marianne was in danger?</p><p> </p><p>The day of skirmishes wasn’t quite done after that battle had met its conclusion, and the class of golden deer carried on towards their next point of interest. Hilda remained beside Marianne in the carriage they travelled in despite the altercation they had the night before. Marianne stayed quite just about all of the journey however, paying close attention instead to how the snow fell as well as tracks the wheels left behind. She couldn’t shake the image in her mind, how the professor had just wound up standing before her. Was it a faux memory, whipped up by the madness of combat? Her eyes peered up from the shadow of her bangs, glimpsing to the professor. He was sat as he always had been, staring out and towards the snowscape. If there were any answer coded into his expression, she couldn’t decipher it.</p><p>Within the coming battles, Marianne’s behavior had altered significantly. She was more spaced out, staring into the snow and how footprints came to appear rather than eyeing the enemy. Whenever an ally performed a particularly risky act, footprints seemed to manifest around them right before their movements went through. </p><p>Such an oddity lead Marianne to behave… differently. She began throwing herself headlong into the enemy, attacking those out of her comfort zone, allowing herself to be an easy target. Each time, she came out unscathed. Each time, the professor was nearby aiding in some way. Each time, a batch of footprints manifested around her within the snow. </p><p>Marianne, despite such stellar performance, felt the color leave her face at such an eerie realization. She decided to return to her conservative fighting style once more, staying back and letting the rest of her class do their jobs. They were aptly impressed with Marianne’s shows of prowess in battle. Seeing the tepid young woman suddenly excell at combat was an odd surprise. He who did not look upon her with impressment, adoration, or any emotion that one could reasonably discern, was Byleth. However, he did stare, leering over her body anytime her gaze was averted. </p><p> </p><p>After their battles the deer had been herded back onto the carriage proper. Each student had become littered with scars within their stay at the monastery, they were far from the children they began as. Each head had some modicum of trouble staying up, slacking to and fro in exhaustion. No single student would be blamed for passing out then and there. </p><p>Hilda and Marianne, having not touched each other in what felt like days, were now nestled together in a warm embrace. Pink hair was propped atop blue hair, a warm look gazing down upon a tuckered one. “Marianne…” Hilda wasn’t even sure if the girl was awake to hear her, “...you were really something today…” </p><p>Peeking from the other side of Marianne’s shoulders was the red-headed member of the deer, “Is... she going to be okay?” Nodding mostly to herself, Hilda mumbles back towards Leonie. “Yeah, she’s out of energy is all. I wonder what got into her?” “Good question, I’ve never seen Marianne like that…” A beat of silence. “Uh, but can I ask you something?” Her head tilts up and off of Marianne’s, giving the other girl her full attention. “Are you two… are <i>you guys</i> like, okay? You’ve been uh, well…” Wincing, Hilda begins speaking in a hushed tone. “Geez… has everyone noticed?” With but an ounce of hesitation, Leonie nods. Hilda prattles on, “Well I guess we could be better we’re just… dealing with some stuff, all couples go through it…” Now, with just a few more of those hesitative ounces, Leonie looks over Hilda quizzically. “I thought you two weren’t a couple…” Another wince, though this one is nearly indiscernible. “...Well, we’re not, just… you know.” Leonie, someone who had very limited relationship experience, <i>didn’t</i> know, but nodded along with the girl regardless. </p><p> </p><p>    The time comes when the carriage is nigh empty, void of any soul bar two; Marianne, and the professor. He’d directed the rest of the class to return to the monastery, and that he needed to speak with Marianne in private. She was still resting from the turmoil of battle, so Hilda was reluctant to leave. She stood at the foot of the carriage, staring up and into the professor. His eyes met her own, the intimate distance making him seem so much less impossible. “...Will you bring her back to her room?” Silent in response, Byleth’s head tilts. It tilts in such a way that would usually indicate curiosity, but is so steady and fixed in it’s turn that Hilda can’t make much from the gesture. Refusing to follow up on her question, she keeps her gaze drilled into his. No one should hold such animosity for the one meant to guide them. A leader should bear only the burden of expectation. His voice, spilling out into the air hisses like the steam off tar. “Where else would I bring her?” </p><p>Was it his eyes? The way he towered over her? Perhaps it was the curious way his breath refused to fog in the bitter cold. Maybe it was even the fact that the pair was truly alone for the first time. Hilda wanted it to be the last. He didn’t carry himself the way a professor should. Instead she could see an arrogance behind his complacent expression, almost a smug knowingness. He bore his own burden, a burden of reverence.</p><p>But, what then, could Hilda say to him at that moment? No action could be soundly made off of assumption alone. However nothing had stopped her from as much in the past. At this moment, something else was halting her instead. Seeing him across the monastery filled her with an unease, one that racked her mind with how little she knew of the professor. Seeing him within the carriage, standing beside her lover and not even a stone’s toss away… it filled her with a dread; One that racked her mind with how much she knew of the professor just from the way he stood above all others.</p><p>In silence, Hilda complied. Walking back toward the monastery with nary a classmate in sight, her head remained skewed, keeping a watch on the professor. Though as he grew further away, and blurred beyond her vision, she wished only to look elsewhere. In doing such, the voice in her thoughts chimes and aches. “Why’d I leave her with him?”</p><p> </p><p>Through the ever so brief altercation, Marianne remained asleep. Her own shoulder served as a headrest, a fact that’d surely be pain for her neck. Snow drifted to and fro in the setting sun’s warmth, flaking across beds of hair like winter’s own decorum. Byleth wouldn’t wake Marianne; Instead, he took a seat across from the girl, elbows atop his knees, and hands weaving into each other as he leaned in to keep close watch of her expression. Her breaths come and go at awfully spaced intervals, each exhale carrying with it the faintest, weakest, whistle.</p><p>She’s awake, though hardly knows it yet. A formless, forgettable, dream becomes cold, and that dream becomes reality as she realizes how the two overlap one another. Shivering, clutching at her arms, folding a leg over another to trade warmth, Marianne buckles into herself at the sudden chill. Was she still in the cart? She didn’t remember falling asleep there, only resting against Hilda.</p><p>Focus seems to come only when the lime green hues before her take a form, a shape, the image of a clay skinned professor meeting her eyes. “Oh… Professor…” Still resting her head off to the side, Marianne’s lips manage a smile while the rest of her body wriggles to an awakened state. Whatever expression she wore, it wasn’t matched by him.</p><p>He rose to his feet with such an abruptness that Marianne felt the cart beneath her waver, such a sudden action drew her to be a tad more attentive. It was a familiar feeling, one that suggested to herself that she’d done something wrong; Something worth chastising. Byleth carried with him a magnitude, one that didn’t express itself through his face, but in a more subtle mean. Marianne could feel the dread spilling from his person, she swore the snowflakes around him even began to slow in their melting. </p><p>“Don’t do it again.” The hole in Marianne’s chest returns, a hollowness caving all throughout her body. “Do… W-what did I do?” He doesn’t answer. He merely gazes out across the snowscape, studying how mounds of white began to gleam with the violet of a coming night. Now with appropriate composure, Marianne hangs her head, choosing instead to stare at her feet. “I’m sorry…” Choosing not to look towards the girl, he responds. “You are sorry… You’re very, very, sorry…” Her head runs amuck with thoughts, none of which can make out why the professor would say such a thing. In confusion, suffused with a bit of panic, her face contorts in the shade, visibly hurt by his words. Her voice, it trails out with a crack. “I’m… Sorry…” Still, he looked away from her.</p><p>“When my father died-” Marianne’s attention is drawn, though she remains stagnant, “-I went to bed only able to think about him. You noticed, and everyone noticed, how hurt it made me feel. But in my bed, on that night, it hadn’t registered yet. ...I couldn’t believe it.” Turning to face her, they met gazes. Neither knew whose head turned first. “Now when I see my students in danger…” Marianne felt her heart hasten some, remembering what she’d been doing earlier that day. “...I relive that disbelief. Again, and again, and-” Her voice cuts with a broken edge, “Professor!” He stays his tongue, now staring into the girl once more. “...I’m sorry… I’m sorry that I yelled and… and that I made you relive… a-and that…” Trailing off, she allows the pair to relish in a bout of silence once more. “...Professor… No one knows what you are… but when your footprints would crop up around me when I thought I was in danger…” Saying nothing, he lets her continue. “...I think that I knew you were saving me… from…” She didn’t know. And so, she didn’t say. It wasn’t clear if he’d been blinking.</p><p>Within the quiet of night, rubber heels thud across the wooden carriage, and before Marianne. Their eyes met once more, and it was Byleth’s turn. “Five times. I believe I had to watch you die five times tonight.” His blank expression softens into a damp frown, one that wasn’t as carefully constructed as his others. “I didn’t like that, Marianne…” Slouching, though still managing to perpetuate eye contact, she manages a nod of understanding. </p><p>It’s never acknowledged, but Marianne feels the pressure on her forehead; Byleth’s finger. “You took an arrow here… An axe...” his free hand palms at her collar, “...here…” She’s forced to crane her head back to properly accommodate the hands finding themselves against her body. A poor blend of guilt and excitement fills her chest. The professor’s touch, at least so near, was something she wasn’t anticipating. A beat of silence. “Where…” her voice is burdened into a whisper, “...where else, Professor?” He can hear a heartbeat beginning to pound, and knows for certain it can’t be his own. Without taking his eyes off Marianne, that same frown locked onto his visage, Byleth’s hand retracts from her head and instead plants itself to her gut. Giving a voiceless gasp, Marianne hears the professor mumble, “...here too.”</p><p>The inside of her thighs is where Marianne feels a trembling sensation. Her knees need pushing together as she holds eye contact with her professor, his looming figure beginning to eclipse all in her view. “P-professor…” she can’t spit it out without mewling over her own words. He doesn’t acknowledge as much, instead speaking of his own concerns. “I do not want to see that again; A student endangering herself…” The eye contact breaks, as does the contact of flesh. Pulling away, Byleth allows a moment of thought before returning to his stare. “Understand?” Marianne, whose heart had been throbbing, knits her brow to combat his words. “I’m sorry but no… Professor, my crest… y-you know what it does, you know I’m a burden to those around me, you know that I’m cursed…” In a familiar bout of passion, she bites at the air between them, “So why did you let me live?!” Just then it seems as if perhaps he spoke calmly if only to viciously juxtapose her aggression. </p><p>“Because I care about you.”</p><p>Her attitude queled, eyes widened as she leaned back into her seat. “I don’t show it; I was raised not to show it. But I care about all of you.” Toes curl within Marianne’s boots. “You… e-even me?” “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here Marianne.” When she hears that, something within her releases; Perhaps it was doubt, perhaps something warmer. “...Tell me, do you understand now?” Her voice finally broke just above a whisper. “Yes sir.”</p><p> </p><p>    The path back to the monastery is nearly invisible, the rest of the class’ tracks had been nearly filled in by the omnipresent snowfall. Cold was encroaching fully onto the pair. With both being quite accustomed to the temperature it meant little. Though being out for so long, and so active at the same time, both of their bodies could relish in some warmth. It didn’t occur, but Marianne imagined a scenario in which the professor lent her his coat.</p><p>    “Goodnight Professor.” Now within the monastery once more, they part paths. He nodded to see her off, but pleasantries ended there, Marianne was toward her dorm once again. She treads across the familiar grounds, heels thumping along ceramic tile. Hard to ignore was her heartbeat and how it thumped with enough force to be felt within her ears. On the topic of ears, Marianne’s own felt warm with blush upon remembering the carriage. The professor was so serious, so dour with her, she felt guilt upon refusing to shake the feeling from her head. Her left hand rose, clutching at her collar. <i>That</i> feeling.</p><p>    From her collar, her hand departed, instead palming her tummy. It made her breaths hitch in tempo. Footsteps met the pace. “Yes sir… Yes sir…” She mumbles it to herself like a maniac, thriving off how speaking it aloud fills her with an unknown heat. By the time she reaches the stairs to her dorm, Marianne’s ascending two steps at a time. Halting in the region between upstairs and down, her back pushes to the wall, rising with her toes as fingers on her belly rub deeper, lower… “Yes… s-sir…” Jeopardizing as it may be, her eyes shut, allowing her to begin visualizing a myriad of passing scenarios. No one is around to shut her up, so she merely bites down on her own lip, stifling whines to the best of her ability. </p><p>Her fingertips brushed over it, the mound at the groin of her skirt. A layer of silk wasn’t enough to snuff out the moisture, Marianne could see it so gently soaking through her dress. Planting her left palm to the wall behind her, she allows her fingers to sift across her privates, pushing at it through layers of attire. The heat throughout her body was spiking, answering her gestures with generous returns. This is what she needed. Beating away with her three forefingers Marianne’s hips begin to jerk forward in response. Her body lifted in such a way with each carnal rock that she feared what judgement the goddess may face her with. But such worries couldn’t stay for long. Her mind is being addled with visions of the professor, memories of how he felt upon her. Pelvis pushing to fingers, cloth pushing to privates, Marianne feels her breaths grow briefer and briefer, her mind stirring about with messy, pink, thoughts, when--</p><p>
  <i>Clack, clack.</i>
</p><p>Someone was coming. It didn’t matter who, someone was coming. Moving with speed, speed that Marianne herself wasn’t aware she was capable of, the girl straightens out, starting her ascension up the steps once more. Her room was right there, so she needn’t walk far. Yet her legs quaked regardless, eager to dive in once more.</p><p> </p><p>Her door is nearly slammed shut, the lock falling down faster than Marianne’s own garbs. Fingers yanked her buttons open, feet kicked shoes away, hips wriggle incessantly, though that wasn’t in effort to disrobe. Her dress is shaken off of her body in a haste, crassly being tossed over her desk’s chair as she stumbles over to her bed. The rebound of springs is heard as she collapses upon it, her knees and chest both firmly planted to the sheets. Panties stretch at the hem as Marianne pulls them below her bottom, clasping her knees together only for a moment as to be away with the troubling cloth. </p><p>Now, nothing was stopping her. Though, perhaps volume could be an issue; It’s solved swiftly when Marianne shoves her face into a pillow. Now, she could allow herself to continue. It’s muffled, but saying it is all she needs. “Yes sir…” Fingers grip her bedspread, and fan to seize her crotch. “Yes sir… Yes sir!” Sifting cyan pubes between her digits, Marianne’s index and middle finger dive into her sex, feverishly rubbing with a need. Her bush was already clumping amongst itself with sticky, carnal, fluids, liquids that only made themselves more known as she worked away. Everything had been so cold that day, even her room was bitten with a chill, so how was her body pricked with sweat? </p><p>Each rub sends her hips jerking, rising her ripe bottom upwards, offering it to someone who wasn’t even there. “Yes… yes sir… Nnn…” Shameful little moans escape between each word, muffling into her pillow like a sponge. There’s little grace to it, Marianne was dripping, her sex providing a steady trickle of fluid onto the sheets as she rubbed away. The noise was telling, a wet suction whose each recurrence was fought with an audibly sticky resistance. Flooded with heat, Marianne shoved her head further into the pillow, groaning out in desperation as she crudely works a third finger into her process, allowing each digit to shove into and out of her nethers. It was getting worse, each telling yank of her hips flung a stubborn thread of juice. She couldn’t get it out of her head. </p><p>Byleth feeling her collar.</p><p>Byleth feeling her gut.</p><p>Byleth feeling her sex.</p><p>Grabbing her hair.</p><p>Yanking it.</p><p>Pressing her cheek to a wall.</p><p>Pinning her.</p><p>Denying resistance.</p><p>Taking her.</p><p>“Yes… sir… s-sir… Mnn…” Her wrist drove it’s tempo higher. Whilst her thumb finally drove down atop the apex of her petals. Her clitoris was subject to pressure all too suddenly. “P-professor! Nnnn…!” Tensing like a wound spring, Marianne’s eyes cross within her pillow, the muffle of feathers almost not enough to cloak- “<b>Byleth!</b>” Unwound, she arches her back as relieved huffs escape an absently agape maw. She felt the rush of liquid as she couldn’t help but squirt onto her blankets, just the sound of it hitting cloth filled her cheeks with a shame. </p><p> </p><p>Sleep came like a killer for Marianne. Even with her earlier nap, she was out cold from such a release. In her moments before sleep, however, her mind bore some few passing thoughts. “I proved Hilda right.” That’s one of them. It’s the one that keeps her up. Marianne’s words for Hilda, telling her not to fret and such, they would all mean naught if Hilda ended up right to be worried after all. Was that wrong? Was it wrong for Marianne to yield, to admit to not being in the right of things?</p><p>Differentially, other passing thoughts are of a similarly rosy hue, though for different reasons. Marianne can’t shake his image from her mind. Not only how he felt her, but how he felt for her. “He cares about me.” It strikes her mind regularly, sending the girl into writhing bouts of giddiness. Despite everything dour about the professor, she could only focus on that which brought her joy. </p><p>Thus sleep did come so swiftly. The professor lulled her to bed, and he’d be her reason to rise.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Finally an update, and the longest chapter too. Definitely enjoyed writing this one.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My first fic, and a constant wip until... well until it's not. Follow me on twitter @PepsiCaramel and tell me to write stuff.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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